Taking advantage of having the Greenway Self Park right next door, the AMLI building’s residents will enjoy a large landscaped roof deck on top of the garage. Amenities will include a swimming pool, a jogging path and dog runs. Pretty cool!

As long as they keep saving the old three story buildings in River North and keep building on surface parking lots, I’ll be a happy camper.

The Poetry Foundation, designed by Chicago’s John Ronan Architects, is slated to begin construction sometime soon at its new location on the Southwest corner of Dearborn and Superior Streets. The Foundation’s new office is slated to open in June 2011 and will be one of a few actual places devoted to the advancement of poetry in the United States.

You go…Poetry Foundation! I suppose I never would have thought poetry needed a building to advance itself but if the building turns out like these photos, advance away. I love the contrast of the black, sleek, modern look next to the older buildings that are made from stone and concrete.

So although I wasn’t happy to see two old buildings demolished, I’m glad there will be a patch of green and trees in the middle of the Loop. The John Buck Company, developer of the neighboring 155 N. Wacker, is helping to develop this new downtown public plaza located at Randolph and Franklin Streets. Now for the fun part, Chicago taxpayers are footing the $7MM bill for this public plaza through TIF funds.

New Catholic school building slated for South Loop

(Crain’s) — The Archdiocese of Chicago plans to start work in June on a new school building on a South Loop site purchased from a venture including restaurateur Matthew O’Malley.

The 33,000-square-foot elementary school building is to be completed in 2011 next to Old St. Mary’s, 1500 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago’s oldest parish that has seen its school’s enrollment grow amid the housing boom on the Near South Side. The school is currently located in a 12,000-square-foot former warehouse.

Mr. O’Malley’s venture sold for $2.4 million, after paying $1.35 million for it in 2005, property records.

Mr. O’Malley has a daughter at the school and is also donating to the building project. He was at the center of a controversy several years ago over an agreement with Chicago Park District to operate the Park Grill restaurant in Millennium Park. He could not be reached for comment.

The school, which opened in 2004, offers pre-kindergarten through fourth grade and now has about 170 students. A grade is being added each year, with some 215 students expected to be enrolled next school year, says the principal, Mary Lee Calihan. The school is getting many more applications than it can accept, she says.

The new building will be primarily a school, with some meeting space for parish use, says the Rev. Mike Kallock, Old St. Mary’s pastor. Newman Architecture of Naperville designed the building.

The school is proposed for a site that includes some land that the archdiocese already owned. The archdiocese has requested a zoning amendment for the property, and is represented by attorney Thomas S. Moore of Chicago law firm Anderson & Moore.

The parish is also growing, with more than 1,200 people at Masses on Sundays, up from about 500 when the church moved to its current site in 2002, says Rev. Kallock, who has been pastor since 2006.

The archdiocese is financing the $6-million construction project without loans, and the parish will have to pay back the money. The project has been scaled back from original plans that were too costly, Rev. Kallock says.

Just caught these plans for a new residential high rise building on the real estate message board, Skyscraperpage. The proposed building, designed by Brininstool, Kerwin and Lynch, will replace one of the many parking lots in Chicago’s West Loop and Greektown neighborhoods on Green Street between Van Buren and Jackson.

The Brininstool, Kerwin and Lynch website describes the building as having around 370,000 square feet in 28 story’s, eight of which will be above ground parking clad in glazed horizontal windows. With the current plans, I’m definitely on the road to really liking the building. The base from far away actually looks pretty interesting but once you see a close up photo, my opinion goes a complete 180… It just looks so boring and sterile especially when it’s surrounded by dozens of old, detailed, brick buildings. Please come up with something better!

Investors to be ready to build if market improves

Looking ahead on high-rise

January 15, 2010

BY DAVID ROEDER AND FRAN SPIELMAN Staff Reporters

An investor team that includes two Bridgeport businessmen and a specialist in industrial cleanups is trying its luck with high-rise housing. They have proposed a 33-story building at 519 S. Clinton, just west of the vacant Old Main Post Office.

It’s a poor market for planning a high-rise, so work won’t start anytime soon. But Langdon Neal, the investors’ zoning lawyer, said they wanted to start the approval process anyway.

“They wanted to get the entitlement work done, so if the market does turn, they can take advantage,” Neal said.

The investors include William Pacella and George Bonomo of Bridgeport. Pacella owns a trucking firm that won contracts under the city’s scandal-scarred Hired Truck program exposed by the Chicago Sun-Times. Bonomo owns a supplier of paper and cleaning supplies.

They’ve invested together in race horses, and in the 1990s they tried to renovate the old Evans furrier building at 36 S. State, but couldn’t finance the deal.

Another investor is Shadow Mirkhaef, an executive at GSG Consultants Inc., which handles industrial cleanups.

Their proposal calls for 276 units of either rental or for-sale housing, depending on the market’s inclination, Neal said. Also included would be 327 parking spaces, a large allotment that would enable the site to provide parking for a Holiday Inn next door….

I’ve always wanted SOMETHING to be built on this side of the river and Congress. The land is soo close to the Loop and it’s being incredibly underutilized. This building looks great and should fit in nicely…not to mention the amazing green roof that’s planned for the building! I love green roofs!

So tonight is the public meeting to go over plans for the redevelopment of the old Lincoln Park Hospital and its site, located at 550 W. Webster Avenue. The meeting will start at 6:30PM in Lincoln Park High School, located at 2001 N. Orchard Street in Chicago. Now, if you’ve ever been to a public meeting, especially a meeting that deals with a proposed development, the crazy’s come out like werewolves to a full moon. I plan on going to show my support for the redevelopment…and of course to take in the spectacle.

I am 100% in favor of the plans for the old hospital for a number of reasons. I actually think the plans are quite nice and look a million times better than what is currently there. I also like that the developer plans to re-use the two major buildings and the neighboring (and extremely ugly) parking garage and turn them into something that is actually used and contributes to creating a neighborhood. Now this is just my opinion, but residents of a major city with high rises all around sound a bit ridiculous when they complain about a 6 and 12 story building and the “traffic” that they will create. Didn’t the hospital create a TON of noise and traffic when it was open?

Thanks to Skyscrapercity user “spyguy” for the three photos! Rumor, and I mean rumor is that this new residential high rise development is actually two separate buildings called Parkway Point. The smaller building is rumored to have 50 condos and will be around 114ft tall. The taller building may have 60 units and will be 150ft tall. Thankfully, it looks like Parkway Point will include parking which is definitely necessary given the lack of parking already in the neighborhood.

In order for Parkway Point to be built, a courtyard apartment building, another retail building, and a parking lot will need to be demolished. As much as I love new development, I do have to say that I am slightly bummed because that vintage courtyard building is nice and looks well maintained. But I bet I’d get over it fast when I see this finished.

Another thing I’m NOT looking forward to are the NIMBY’s that will make this development very difficult to get off the ground. I have a feeling this will get massively scaled back or won’t ever happen because of neighboring residents “concerns.”

Does anyone have additional info on this project??? Feel free to share!

Proposed Lincoln Park condo project scaled down

(Crain’s) — Developers of a proposed luxury condominium complex overlooking Lincoln Park are slashing the number of units by nearly a third in a bid to break through the locked-up market for large construction loans.

Ricker-Murphy Development LLC told buyers last week that the number of units would be cut by a nearly a third, to 198 from the 292 previously proposed, in Lincoln Park 2520, a three-building complex proposed for the site of the demolished Columbus Hospital, 2520 N. Lakeview Ave.

As a result, developers plan to lop off eight stories from the tallest building, reducing the height to 33 stories from the 41 stories previously proposed.

“Our opportunity to reduce the scale we believe will actually make us more attractive for not only construction financing, but also more attractive for the buyers” who want a smaller project, says John Murphy, a co-principal in Ricker-Murphy, whose joint-venture partner is the General Electric Co. pension fund.

Although the building will be shorter, the changes would not affect the design by Chicago architect Lucien Lagrange.

But even at a reduced size, the project would likely require a construction loan of more than $200 million to complete. As a result, the venture plans to start work without a loan on the foundation, which alone could take 12 months to finish. A smaller building still could be completed by late 2011, as required by the current contracts with homebuyers.

The shift in strategy comes as Ricker-Murphy faces an Aug. 15 maturity date on a $28.75-million loan on the site held by Bank of America, property records show. Mr. Murphy says talks are already under way for an extension of the loan.

B of A executives could not immediately be reached for comment, a spokeswoman says.

Ricker-Murphy and the GE pension fund are taking an aggressive approach to challenges facing many residential developers, who have instead opted to put their projects on hold.

“The cheapest thing to do is to sit and wait it out,” says developer Harry Huzenis, a principal in Chicago-based Jameson Development LLC. “The type of buyer they have will be there when the market is better.”

With asking prices of $885 a square foot, the project has not been immune from the broad downturn in the condo market, despite its premium location. Sales have stalled at about 50% of the units, a level that was once more than enough to obtain a construction loan. But lenders have become fearful of new condo projects because of deep concerns about weak demand and the glut of units already being built.

By reducing the number of units, the percentage of condos under contract would increase to 74%, from about 50%, assuming the number of buyers does not change, Mr. Murphy says. Reducing the number of units eliminates 29 condos that are already under contract, giving those buyers the chance to walk away and possibly washing out any advantage to the developers….